Having suffered a severe beating, 32-year-old Danna L. Dever was dumped in a rural ditch in 1996 where she would later be found dead by a pair of farmworkers. Not even classified as a homicide for more than a decade, now, nearly 17 years later, Solano County prosecutors have secured a conviction in her murder.

A Solano County Superior Court jury on Wednesday convicted Fairfield resident, Lonnie J. Kerley, 53, of second-degree murder for the death of his former live-in girlfriend following a trial that stretched two months. Dever was found on July 8, 1996, in a rural area near Highway 113 and Flannery Road, but would go unidentified for 11 years, stalling the case.

Despite attempts by Kerley's defense counsel, Deputy Public Defender Dawn Polvorosa, to label Dever as a methamphetamine addict with a habit of leaving her client for a week or more at a time, jurors unanimously sided with prosecutors, who presented evidence that Kerley subjected Dever to years of abuse leading up to her death.

At trial, Deputy District Attorneys Krishna Abrams and Julie Underwood laid out for jurors the years of violence Dever suffered, as testified to by dozens of Dever's relatives, neighbors and even law enforcement officers. Relatives and neighbors testified that they suspected that underneath Dever's heavy makeup she wore, were the bruises from Kerley beating her.

In deliberating the case, jurors also took extra time reviewing videotaped statements of Kerley speaking to investigators at the Fairfield Police Department in 2007, when the death notification was made.

Puzzling to investigators was why he waited so long to report Dever missing.

According to testimony, Kerley reported Dever missing on Aug. 5, 1996, nearly two months after he claimed she walked out on him and their young daughter.

"If she didn't want to be a part of our life, there was nothing I could do about it," Kerley told investigators during the recorded interview.

The cycle of violence escalated in January 1996, when Dever finally mustered the courage to call the police on Kerley for beating her.

He was arrested and the Solano County District Attorney's Office filed charges against him.

A theory of the prosecution was that the prospect of going to jail upset Kerley, and several letters requesting the charges be dismissed were submitted to the DA's office. Prosecutors raised questions about the authenticity of the documents, shown to be signed by Dever.

However, by the time of Kerley's June 19, 1996, court date, Dever was missing, according to Kerley's later interviews with police. Yet he had not told anyone she was missing at the time and went ahead and pleaded to a misdemeanor battery charge.

"He came in and pled so they wouldn't go looking for her," Abrams said in her closing argument.

Kerley remains in Solano County Jail custody. Judge Alan P. Carter ordered him back to his Vallejo courtroom at 1:30 p.m. on Jan. 31 for sentencing.